Heart failure may be chronic or acute. Chronic heart failure may involve a decrease in heart function over time. In this situation, a chronic heart failure patient may suffer from acute heart failure. Acute heart failure may also have other causes, such as trauma or disease. One type of acute heart failure, acute decompensated heart failure (“ADHF”), may be a cause of acute respiratory distress. Current methods for treating heart failure using conventional drugs seek to reduce elevated cardiac filling pressures and increase renal excretion of sodium and water. However, current methods have serious shortcomings. Particularly, when reducing elevated cardiac filling pressures, current methods fail to maintain adequate systemic blood pressure. Thus, current methods may cause a patient to experience potentially dangerous hypotension. In addition, when increasing renal excretion of sodium and water, current methods may cause a decrease in renal function or renal failure.